


Unreasoned

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [36]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, John's parents - Freeform, John's past, Logical Sherlock, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Nightmares, Pet Names, Sherlock has learned a lot about looking after John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3562127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is wracked with another nightmare, but he is taking Sherlock's advice and talks about it. You have to get these things out of your head to see that they don't make sense, after all. ANd if you still have trouble believing the logic, it helps to have a honeybee on hand who can step you through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unreasoned

_He’s running and he’s running and he’s running and he’s too late, he’s going to be too late like he’s always too late and if he could just get there, get to the hospital on time, Dad will be all right and Mum will be all right and Sherlock will be all right and everything and everything and everything will be all right._

_And his feet crash onto the pavement as he runs through the forest of buildings that grows and grows and grows, and the ground is hard but it’s like running in treacle and it’s like running in sand and things are exploding but he runs he runs he runs through it all, unscathed, and if he can just be on time, this one time, this one and only time it will be all right._

_The hospital is there, it’s right there, but there isn’t enough time, the black bird is falling, he’s falling, no no no no, except except except it’s okay. The raven falls and spreads its wings, wide wide wide as the sky and it swoops and skims, playful and clever and the creak of its wings is a beautiful sound, and its dry call is like music and the raven will be back, it will, when he can._

_But the wind of its wings brushes cold as he realises he has stopped running and he’s run out of time._

_The clocktower bell rings as he reaches the doors of the hospital and pushes them open but it’s too late, too late, too late and Harry is fading away, like a Cheshire Cat, only leaving tear tracks in the air instead of a grin, and everything turns to ash and fire._

_Your fault, whispers the ash. Should have been here, crackles the fire._

John jerked awake on a sobbing breath, only to immediately feel a warm hand pressed to his chest.

He was, he remembered, sitting in his arm chair by the fire. He must have dozed off.

John pressed his splinted hand over the hand on his chest and pressed it closer, over his racing heart.

“Ssh, John. It’s all right.”

His gaze swam into focus and there was Sherlock, kneeling on the floor in front of him, his the hand pressed to John’s chest and his concerned eyes searching John’s face and form, observing, deducing.

“I’m too late,” said John in a ragged tone. “I’m always too late and they die. In my dream.”

Sherlock rubbed his thumb against John’s shirt.

“My Mum and Dad,” John elaborates, gathering his breath and his wits, “You too sometimes, but not this time. This time you flew away.”

“John.”

“But they die. I can’t ever get there in time.”

“John,” said Sherlock soothingly, “There was nothing you could have done to save them.”

John nodded as his shaking subsided. “I know that. I was even with them both, actually, at the end. Dad first, then Mum. I was in the hospice both times.”

“Not too late, then.”

“No, but…” John pushed the heel of his free hand into one eye, scrubbing away perspiration and tears. “I’m doing what you said, Sherlock. I’m going to get it outside my head. Okay?”

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock, John’s hand still clasped over his, both over John’s clamouring heart.

John took a breath. “Dad developed lung cancer in my first year of med school. He died before the end of the second. Harry and Mum did so much of the caring for him. I just wasn’t there.”

“Where were you?”

“Studying. Or at my job. Jobs. I had a couple. Free education isn’t entirely free, after all, and the NHS covered a lot but there wasn’t a lot of income. Dad needed so much care by the end, Mum couldn’t work. So I studied and worked a couple of jobs, and Harry too, and we made ends meet.”

“So you looked after them.”

“I tried.”

“You kept your family housed and clothed and fed so they could look after your father,” said Sherlock, “And you kept studying.”

“I’d got in to King’s College on a scholarship. I wanted to quit to help but Dad was adamant that I shouldn’t waste the opportunity. So I stayed on, pulled pints in the evenings at the local, and worked the off-license on weekends.”

“That must have been hard.”

“The jobs weren’t much in terms of brain work, but it got a bit wearing, yeah. Breaking up the bar fights twice a week were pretty much the only fun I had for a year. In the end I was going to have to drop out of the college because I just couldn’t keep up the pace. It’s one of the reasons I enlisted in the RAMC, actually.”

“So you could study and earn simultaneously.”

“Yeah.”

“And of course you still lived at home.”

“We couldn’t afford anything else, and someone had to do the cooking.”

Sherlock nodded. “So. You studied full time. You worked two part time jobs. You supported your family financially and practically and you were at his side at the end.”

“Yes.” Then John puffed out a short laugh. “You’re going to ask me in what way, precisely, I think I let them down.”

“The question had occurred to me.”

“I could have done more.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

John smiled ruefully. “I always felt I should have done more. It was hard on Mum and worse on Harry. She held on for a while, but after the funeral she fell apart a bit. That’s when the drinking started in earnest. After what happened with our father, losing Dad really hit her hard.”

Sherlock knew of course that the man who had raised John and Harry had not been their birth father, but John never spoke of that man, saying once that he didn't really remember him. _I was very young when he left_ , he said. Sherlock tucked that comment away for another time. Now, he captured John’s other hand, closed in a fist on the arm of John’s chair, being careful of the dressing over the healing burns.

“You said you dreamed of both your parents,” prompted Sherlock gently, “And I know you were with your mother when she died.”

John sighed. “I was near the end of my first tour when she finally wrote and told me about the diagnosis. By the time Harry made her go to the doctor to check it out, it was too far advanced for us to do much. But I got to spend the last few weeks with her at the hospice. Harry was a mess again so it was mostly me.”

Sherlock leaned forward on his knees to kiss John’s knuckles, and waited.

“I wish there was more I could have done for them. I just didn’t know what. It was easier being in Afghanistan. I knew what to do there. I knew how to help.” John’s voice was getting thicker again, with sorrow and grief.

“But feeling helpless is not the same as failing them, John.”

“I… I… should have done more.”

“Tell me what you could have done to prevent your mother’s death from late stage, aggressive, metastasised breast cancer and your sister’s descent into alcoholism?”

John opened his mouth and nothing came out.

“Say it, John.” Sherlock’s voice was soft, but definite.

John’s brow furrowed and his mouth drew down tight. “I can’t.”

“You can. Say what your reason knows to be true.”

“It doesn’t feel true.”

“That’s because it’s trapped inside your feelings. Put it out here where you can see it. Ignore what your feelings say. What does your reason tell you?”

“It’s not my fault.” John didn’t sound at all convinced.

“I think you need to expand a little on that,” said Sherlock firmly, but not unkindly.

“I…” John swallowed, then ploughed on. “I wasn't too late. I couldn't have saved her, or Dad. I did the best I knew how each time to look after them, and Harry. I couldn’t stop the cancer. I wasn’t even a doctor when Dad died, and I was never an oncologist. I was there with them at the end. They weren’t alone and neither was Harry.”

He wound down and sat there, breathing deep, looking at Sherlock who was looking straight back at him.

Then Sherlock moved forward from where he kneeled, to wrap both arms around John’s waist and to press his ear now to John’s chest, over his heart. Sherlock rubbed his cheek over John’s shirt and encircled John’s back with his arms, pushing one hand up between the back of the chair and John’s spine, coming to rest between his shoulder blades. The other was splayed over the small of his back. Sherlock edged forward so his whole body was pressed to John’s, between John’s knees.

“Listen to your reason,” he said, loudly and firmly, and he tilted his head up to kiss John’s chin. “Fear and grief tell us lies. We must give more attention to our reason.”

John circled his splinted hand around Sherlock’s back, and brushed his other fingers through curls. “What does love tell us, then?”

“That there is hope,” said Sherlock instantly, “And that we do not need to be perfect to have value or to be worthy of love.”

John bent down to nuzzle the top of Sherlock’s head. “I love you, honeybee. And that’s my reason talking.”

Sherlock nudged his face against John’s chest, catlike, and said, “See? Reason is a very good adjudicator. Fear and grief are terrible judges.”

John laughed. “Sweet boy,” he said, “Love bug.” Another kiss, to Sherlock’s uptilted brow. “You know, this ‘saying stuff out loud to see the shape of it’ thing sort of works.”

“Of course it does. I’m a genius.”

“Not a modest one.”

“I’ve already explained that false modesty is an affront to reason.”

“So you have. Sugar muffin.” He leant close to Sherlock’s ear. “My precious honeybee.”

Sherlock turned to place his other ear against John’s heart in order to look at the splints on John’s fingers. John followed the line of his gaze and from there, the train of this thought.

“You’re right,” said John, “Things will get better when the splints come off and the burns are well enough to do without the bandages. I feel so helpless like this. In all those nightmares, I feel so helpless.”

“You’re not helpless, though,” said Sherlock matter of factly. “A little physically limited for a time, but your mind was not idle for the whole Milverton case and you certainly didn’t let anything slow you down in Newcastle.” He adjusted his ear to lie more directly over John’s heart. “But I agree that when the splints come off you’ll feel much happier. Now sssh, I want to listen to your heartbeat.”

Then he sighed and relaxed against John’s chest, holding snugly to his husband, and smiled at the steady rhythm he heard.

John’s “Heh,” was a breathy, happy sound, making the curls in front of his mouth waft. John kissed the spot. “Candyfloss,” he said. He riffled Sherlock’s hair to make it flossier. “Have I told you today you're amazing?”

“Yes. You have.” Sherlock snuggled against John, wriggling to get in closer.

John shifted his knees apart to aid the attempt. Then he embraced Sherlock more firmly, too, arms curled around his shoulders. “Well, like you say. We have to let our reason say things out loud so it can be properly heard. You’re amazing and you’re good for me and I love you.”

“I love you, too. I can give you all the reasoning behind it, of course, but a lot of it is just my heart collaborating with my reason to be an excellent judge of character.”

“You have a clever heart, sweetpea.”

“It wasn’t, always. It learned how to be from you.”

John kissed and kissed and kissed his honeybee’s brow, then hugged him tight and they sat like that for a while.

Eventually, John asked, “Are your knees killing you yet?”

“Not quite yet.”

“Then how about a shower before you do seize up, hmm?”

“Mmm,” agreed Sherlock.

They rose and, holding hands, went to caress and bathe each other, their clever hearts and clever heads working in tandem.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not John's 'frightened boy' dream... that is yet to come, the key to the puzzle of why John thinks it's his job to save everyone.


End file.
